Our first, second, and third concerns: science, science, and science
Because of how we're structured, how we conduct our research, and the elite collection of scientists we have working with us, the Buck is in a unique position to define the approach for solving many of the biggest problems facing the world today. The Buck’s leadership works every day to ensure our scientists have the support and resources they need as they tackle these immense challenges.
President and CEO
Dr. Eric Verdin
Eric Verdin is the president and chief executive officer of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. A native of Belgium, Dr. Verdin received his Doctorate of Medicine (MD) from the University of Liege and completed additional clinical and research training at Harvard Medical School. He has held faculty positions at the University of Brussels, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Picower Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Verdin is also a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Verdin joined the Buck in 2016 after spending the previous 20 years as a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, where he served as associate director from 2004 to 2016.
Dr. Verdin’s laboratory focuses on the role of epigenetic regulators in the aging process. His laboratory was the first to clone a family of enzymes called HDACs, which regulate histone acetylation. Dr. Verdin studies how metabolism, diet, and small molecules regulate the activity of HDACs and sirtuins, and thereby the aging process itself and its associated diseases, including Alzheimer’s. He has published more than 210 scientific papers and holds more than 15 patents. He is a highly cited scientist and has been recognized for his research with a Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging and a senior scholarship from the Ellison Medical Foundation. He is an elected member of several scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He also serves on the advisory council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the NIH.
Contact for more information
Bill R. Poland
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Bill Poland is the chair of the board of trustees at the Buck Institute. A real estate entrepreneur, Bill is founder and president of Bay West Group, a commercial real estate development company committed to creating value in the development of urban infill, opportunistic, and adaptive reuse projects. He is a member of the Georgia Tech President’s Advisory Board, the Urban Land Institute, and the board of the Steers Global Real Estate Center at Georgetown University. Previously, Bill served as chair of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, president of the Olympic Club in San Francisco, and councilmember of the town of Ross, California. Bill holds a BA in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Stanford.
Darius Anderson is the founder and CEO of Kenwood Investments, LLC, a California Real Estate Development and Opportunity Fund, and the founder and managing member of Sonoma Media Investments, LLC. He is also the founder and CEO of Platinum Advisors, a full-service government affairs firm providing lobbying, public affairs, and strategic consulting to corporations, governments, trade associations, and nonprofit organizations.
Andy Barnes is founder and principal of Barnes and Company, which provides consulting and advisory services to organizations having complex land-use needs and sustainable development objectives. He utilizes his career experiences to help build better places to live and work and to achieve more viable cities, emphasizing smart growth techniques. Andy was previously CEO of the Stapleton Development Company in Denver. Earlier in his career, he was the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, for which he received the Presidential Design Award. Andy is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, and is a former White House Fellow and German Marshall Fund Fellow. He serves on the boards of Greenbelt Alliance and SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Development), and is a past chair of both organizations’ boards.
Dick Bodman is chairman of TDF Ventures, a venture capital firm and foundation based in Washington, D.C. He is also the managing general partner of VMS Group, president of Venture Management Services, Inc., and a managing member of VMS Fund Administration, LLC (VMSFA), all of which perform administrative and advisory services for venture capital funds. He is co-founder and chairman of PurThread Technologies, Inc., which makes antimicrobial textile products. He is also the managing manager of Bodman Oil & Gas, LLC, and a board member of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and Allergy. From 1990 to 1996, he was senior vice president for strategy and development at AT&T, lead director at Sandia National Laboratories, and founder and chairman of AT&T Ventures. From 1973 to 1990, he held various management and C-level positions in a private equity firm, communication and satellite corporations, and a major American conglomerate. He also served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and, subsequently, as assistant director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Office of the President between 1971 and 1973.
Lisa Wilcox-Corning is co-founder of Healy-Wilcox Marketing Group, a market research and brand strategy company, and partner at Brand Paradigm, a business strategy consultancy. She has led global research projects for clients such as Visa and the International Olympic Committee but has a particular passion for health care and life sciences, working with clients such as the Mayo Clinic, Sutter Health, Applied Biosystems/ThermoFisher Scientific, and Agilent. She also works with many nonprofits and government agencies, such as Planned Parenthood of California, Covered California, and the Department of Child Support Services. A former attorney at Orrick in San Francisco, Lisa remains a member of the California State Bar Association. She serves currently on the board for the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation’s Women and Children’s Leadership Council. She also chairs the Strategic Planning Committee for the board of directors of Friends of Laguna Honda Hospital.
Dottie Dutton started her career in institutional and private wealth management with the California State Teachers Public Retirement System and became its CIO for fixed-income investments. She then worked at two private money management firms, Delaware Investment Advisors and Scudder, Stevens, and Clark, where she was a senior portfolio manager and partner. In 2006, she opened the Private Client Reserve office for U.S. Bank in San Francisco and spent 10 years building out their wealth management services in Northern California. Dottie currently works as a consultant with Evercore Wealth Management in San Francisco. She sits on the board of directors for Saint Francis Medical Foundation and is a member of the Medical Council Advisory Board for National University of Singapore. Her previous board roles have included the San Francisco Estate Planning Council, where she was the president of the board, and the board of directors for Girls Scouts Council of Northern California.
Darla Flanagan has been a commercial real estate investment and finance executive for over 35 years. She currently owns and manages a portfolio of commercial assets for her family investment company, MKD Investments. She also founded Fowler Flanagan Partners, a real estate investment firm, and was an executive of JMB Realty for 12 years. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including Catellus Development Company, The Branson School, Blue Oak School, and Adopt-a-Family of Marin.
Madeline Gasior is an Analyst in the Prime Services Group at Wells Fargo Securities, where she is responsible for facilitating capital introductions based on analysis of hedge fund strategies and maintaining strong relationships with the West Coast institutional investor community. She has also held roles in the Commercial Real Estate and Financial Institutions Investment Banking Groups at Wells Fargo. Madeline earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School. She is involved in the wellness community in the Bay Area through her organization, Mission Wellness, which curates wellness events and educational speaker series.
Art Gensler founded the Gensler firm (M. Arthur Gensler, Jr. & Associates) in 1965. An architect, he is widely credited with elevating the practice of interior design to professional standing. He is a fellow of both the American Institute of Architects and the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), and he is a professional member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Art graduated from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning and is a member of its advisory council. A charter member of Interior Design magazine’s Hall of Fame and a recipient of IIDA’s Star Award, he has also received Ernst & Young LLP’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2015, he wrote Art’s Principles to offer today’s entrepreneurs the business insights he wishes someone had given him when he was starting out. Art’s notable architecture projects include John F. Kennedy International Airport (NYC), Ritz-Carlton Hotel (Dubai International Financial Centre), Houston Ballet Center for Dance, San Francisco International Airport, The Avenues (Kuwait City), Facebook (London), Duke Kunshan University (China), Shanghai Tower, and Tower at PNC Plaza (Pittsburgh, PA).
Lydia Graham’s career intersects communications, health, and business and spans the national and international marketing, public relations, management, and entrepreneurship sectors. As president and CEO of Graham & Associates, Inc., a highly awarded communications and public relations company headquartered in San Francisco, she works as a creative strategist for clients in the American, European, and Asian markets and is recognized for her innovation and creativity in launching and re-launching new and established companies, divisions, and products in technology, health and wellness, and consumer goods and services. She has successfully concepted and launched new emerging categories, receiving more than 100 awards nationally and internationally. Her work in the health sector has focused specifically on life sciences, healthy living and aging, and longevity. Additionally, she is a partner and investor in several recognized national brands. Early in her career, she held marketing management positions for Qantas Airways HQ North America. She began her business career in management consulting after founding a natural foods company. She is a passionate evangelist for healthy living and healthy aging.
Robert Griswold was a founder, director, president, and CEO of Bank of Marin. He was chairman of the board of the Marin YMCA, the Buck Institute for Education, and the North Bay Leadership Council. He was a founding member of the board of the Marin School to Career Partnership and serves on the National Finance Committee and chairs the Investment Committee for Canine Companions for Independence.
Alton Irby has over 45 years of experience as a senior executive of financial services companies and has served on various public and private company boards in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe. Alton has been the founding partner and chairman of London Bay Capital, a privately held investment firm, since May 2006. He moved to the UK in 1981 as chairman of Wigham Poland, a Lloyds broker, and subsequently served as deputy chairman of Sedgwick PLC until 1988. He was the founding partner of Hambro Magan Irby Holding, a private investment bank in the UK, from 1988 to 1997; chairman and chief executive of Hawkpoint Partners, formerly known as National Westminster Global Investment Bank, from 1997 to 2001; a partner of Gleacher & Co. Ltd. from January 2001 until 2003; and a partner of Tricorn Partners LLC from 2003 to 2006. He is formerly a director of McKesson Corporation, Thomas Weisel Partners, Stifel Financial, Catlin Group PLC, Sedgwick PLC, Centaur Holdings PLC, and ContentFilm PLC.
John M. Jack has worked in the software industry since 1980 in sales, marketing, and executive management. Highlights of his career include serving as chief executive officer at Fortify Software (sold to Hewlett-Packard) and at Covalent (sold to VMware), serving as chief operating officer at The Vantive Corporation (public, sold to PeopleSoft), and holding executive positions at Sybase, Inc. Since leaving Hewlett-Packard in January of 2012, he has served as a consultant to start-up companies and their CEOs. JJ currently serves on a number of venture-backed company boards in cyber-security and other segments of the technology industry. He is also a board partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
With more than 30 years of experience, Jill Kinney is an industry leader in the world of health and fitness. After founding Club One in 1991, Jill built it into a $90 million business with over 3,000 employees. She repurchased the company in 2014 and expanded its scope by establishing one of the first fitness/healthcare partnerships. Today, the company, now known as Active Wellness, is among the largest fitness management companies in the US. Jill is also a pioneer in digital health, having merged her weight loss and behavior improvement program, Itrim, with the digital wellcare platform Moni Health, a medically reimbursable, clinically validated weight loss and behavioral change program. Jill attended UC Berkeley and lives in Marin County.
Edward Lanphier is a former president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and has served as a Buck trustee since 2012. With more than 30 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, Edward is a globally recognized leader in the biopharmaceutical industry. Throughout his professional career, he has been on the forefront of health innovations and therapeutic solutions. In 1995, Edward founded Sangamo BioSciences, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that researches and conducts gene therapy and genome editing. Edward served as the company’s president and CEO from its inception until June 2016, and he currently serves as chairman of Sangamo’s board of directors. He previously served as chairman of the board of directors for the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine and is a member of the board of directors for the Biotechnology Institute and the University of Michigan School of Public Health’s Dean’s Advisory Board. He has significant nonprofit experience with globally focused research and advocacy organizations. Before founding Sangamo, he held management positions at some of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry’s most respected companies, including Eli Lilly, Synergen, and Somatix.
John Larson is a retired San Francisco attorney with over 40 years of practice devoted to high-tech and life science companies. John left as a partner at the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in December 2009 after joining the firm in 2003. Previously, he had served as partner at the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP from 1969 until retiring in January 2003, except between July 1971 to September 1973, when he served as Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior and Counselor to George P. Shultz, chairman of the Cost of Living Council. From 1988 until March 1996, John served as the CEO for Brobeck. He also served on the board of directors of Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. for 20 years. He is a former chair of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and past president of The Branson School’s board of trustees. John served as chairman of the board of directors for WageWorks, a NYSE company, from 2006 until 2016, and he currently serves as an independent director for the board.
Dr. Robert Mahley is president emeritus/founder and senior investigator at the J. David Gladstone Institutes and a professor at University of California, San Francisco. He oversaw Gladstone’s establishment and growth to include three institutes. In 2006, he developed the Gladstone Center for Translational Research to facilitate the movement of some aspects of Gladstone’s basic research into developmental targets. In 2010, after 30 years as president, he stepped down to more actively pursue his research. Dr. Mahley’s research focuses on the structure and function of apolipoprotein (apo) E, including its critical role in cholesterol homeostasis, atherosclerosis, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others.
Dr. Afaf Meleis’s research scholarship focuses on global health, women's health, culturally competent practice, interprofessional education, and epistemological development and progress in the discipline of nursing. Much of her life's work has been dedicated to uncovering the voices of vulnerable populations and to developing “transitions theory,” which is used globally and has been translated into policy, research, and evidence-based-practice. Dr. Meleis is the author of over 200 articles and books in nursing, medical, and social science journals. She speaks and consults widely in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, addressing social inequities facing women and marginalized populations. Dr. Meleis is the recipient of numerous awards as well as honorary doctorates from national and international universities. She is a graduate of the University of Alexandria, Egypt, and the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a professor of nursing and sociology and dean emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She is also a professor emeritus at University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, and other societies.
Jim Mellon is a British entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is co-founder and chairman of Juvenescence, a British Virgin Islands–based holding company that invests in human aging and longevity. He is chairman of Regent Pacific Group Limited, a Hong Kong–listed investment company that specializes in growth- and value-led investments in health care and late-stage life science assets. Jim is coauthor of Juvenescence: Investing in the Age of Longevity.
Paul Meyer is a healthcare technology investor at Mainsail Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in founder-led, fast-growing software companies. At Mainsail, Paul is responsible for engaging entrepreneurs, researching industry trends and conducting financial analyses to source, execute and support the firm’s healthcare investments. Prior to his investing career, Paul was an investment banker at UBS in the Global Healthcare Group. He started his career in healthcare as a management consultant for Clarkston Consulting, a leading boutique life sciences consulting firm. Paul earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Steven Read is a Founding Partner of Read Investments, a preeminent boutique commercial real estate firm operating throughout the Bay Area, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest. He is the former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Grocery Outlet, Inc, a 300-store chain operating in eight western states. An avid skier and cyclist, Read is a current member of the Board of Trustees of the Steadman-Philippon Institute Sports Medicine Foundation, the USSA Ski Team, and the United States Olympic Committee. He is also a member of the UCSF Board of Overseers. Previous board roles include the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Opera, Duke University, and the University of San Francisco.
Lewis Reid was a founder of Marron-Reid, LLC, a Northern California law firm that has its home office in San Francisco. He practiced law for over three decades, primarily in the areas of corporate transactions and tax law. In 1998, he left law practice to become president and CEO of The California Endowment, the largest health-related charitable foundation in California. He stepped down as the foundation’s president and CEO in 2000 and remained on its board of trustees until 2009. Lewis is currently a director of the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, a private foundation devoted to research in diabetes and diseases of aging. His previous professional positions include lecturer in law at University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and minority counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. He is a former chairman of the board at the Buck.
Richard Rosenberg is a retired chairman and CEO of Bank of America. He is also a retired commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, a member of the California Bar Association, a trustee of the California Institute of Technology, a past president of the Bank Marketing Association and the Federal Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve System, and a past chairman of MasterCard International and the United Way of the Bay Area. Richard has served as director of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Saga Foods, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Naval War College Foundation. He has also served as chairman of the executive councils of UCSF Medical Center, Airborne Express Corporation, SBC Communications, UCSF-Stanford Health Care, Chronicle Publishing Company, Northrup Grumman Corporation, Health Care Property Inc., and Pacific Life Insurance Company. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been named to the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame and has received the Horatio Alger Award.
Barbara Schraeger has spent the majority of her career as a neutral third-party facilitator working with management and employee committees to allow for broad participation in decision-making in the workplace. As a consultant to private sector unionized companies and state agencies, she has helped them build strong labor-management relationships and established worksite committees. With funding from the Federal Mediation Service, she created the San Francisco Labor-Management Work Improvement Project under former Mayor Dianne Feinstein and served as the project’s executive director for 10 years. She has held the positions of vice chair and chair of the development committee on the board of directors at the Institute on Aging for over 20 years. Barbara is also a volunteer fundraiser for many nonprofits and several federal and state-elected officials. Appointed by the California Senate Rules Committee, she has served for 10 years on the State Commission on Judicial Performance, which oversees and disciplines all judicial officers in California.
Donald R. Stephens is the Managing Partner of D. R. Stephens & Company, a San Francisco-based real estate investment company he founded in 1973. Among his many business accomplishments, D.R. was a founder, along with David Holbrook, Kenneth Siebel, Charles Schwab and William Rosetti, of the Bank of San Francisco, where he served as Chairman and CEO. D.R. also served as a director of the Charles Schwab Family of Funds. He is currently chairman of D.R. Stevens Estate Wines in Napa Valley. D.R. is a board member of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley. Previous board roles include the American Institute for Foreign Study, the California State Chamber of Commerce, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the San Francisco Airport Commission. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Hastings Law School of UC Berkeley.
Richard Stone, CLU, CFP, is the founder and chairman of Private Ocean, which is widely recognized as one of the most successful progressive wealth management advisory firms in the country. He has been engaged in investing and financial planning in the Bay Area for more than 40 years. He was awarded the prestigious 2011 Schwab IMPACT Leadership Award, which recognizes advisors and firms that have advanced the industry through their visionary leadership, innovative practices, and exceptional growth. The Leadership Award, one of three IMPACT Awards, recognizes his embodiment of the value of independent investment advice through vision, commitment, and community engagement. He is chairman of the Personal Financial Planning Advisory Board at UC Berkeley Extension. He also serves as a member of both the Dominican University board of trustees and the Global Business Council at San Jose State.
Eric Verdin, MD, became president and chief executive officer of the Buck Institute in November 2016. Eric joined the Buck from the Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology, where he served as associate director and senior investigator. He has held faculty positions at the University of Brussels, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Picower Institute for Medical Research. Eric is also a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. The Verdin lab focuses on how metabolism, diet, and small molecules regulate a family of key proteins and, as a result, the aging process and its associated diseases. Eric has published more than 210 scientific papers and holds more than 15 patents. A native of Belgium, he earned his MD from the University of Liege and completed additional training at Harvard Medical School.
Wells Whitney was born in 1933 and brought up in New York City and Boston. He got his BA from Harvard College and MS and ScD from MIT and then did a postdoc year in Strasbourg, France. Over the next few years, he worked on the East Coast for Monsanto, Celanese, and Reprographic Materials in various research and product development positions. In the early 1970s, he moved to the Bay Area and worked for Raychem in Menlo Park for the next 25 years doing research, product development, and exploratory marketing, including three years in Tokyo. After retiring from Raychem, he did several small start-ups, consulted for various technology companies, and served on many local nonprofit boards focusing on urban affairs, immigration, health, and neighborhood improvement. Since he joined the Buck’s board of trustees, he has become very interested in the science of aging. He works in the community leading men’s groups on aging, giving lectures, and teaching sessions on how to have a longer healthy lifespan.
Professor of Developmental and Molecular Biology
Co-Director, Einstein Institute for Aging Research
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Co-Director, Einstein Institute for Aging Research
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology
Thomas and Stacey Siebel Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Research
Howard Hughes Medical Investigator
University of California, Berkeley
Thomas and Stacey Siebel Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Research
Howard Hughes Medical Investigator
University of California, Berkeley
President
Professor, Laboratory of Genetics
Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease
The Salk Institute
Professor, Laboratory of Genetics
Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease
The Salk Institute
Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology
Jesse and Caryl Philips Foundation Chair
The Salk Institute
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology
Jesse and Caryl Philips Foundation Chair
The Salk Institute
Professor of Pathology
Co-Director, Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging
Director, Dog Aging Research Project
University of Washington
Co-Director, Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging
Director, Dog Aging Research Project
University of Washington
Senior Investigator, Head of the Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism at Joslin Diabetes Center
Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
A.W. and Mary Clausen Distinguished Professor of Neurology
Director, Memory and Aging Center
University of California, San Francisco
Director, Memory and Aging Center
University of California, San Francisco
Director, Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease
Joseph B. Martin Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurology
University of California, San Francisco
Joseph B. Martin Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurology
University of California, San Francisco
Professor of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics
Princeton University
Princeton University
Professor of Neurology
Howard Hughes Investigator
University of California, San Francisco
Howard Hughes Investigator
University of California, San Francisco
Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, Stanford University
Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Howard Hughes Investigator
University of California, San Francisco
Howard Hughes Investigator
University of California, San Francisco
Larry Rosenberger assumed the role of Fair Isaac’s first research fellow in October 2007 and currently fulfills that role on a half-time basis, continuing a career with the company that began in 1974. From 1999 to 2007, he led Fair Isaac’s Research Unit, which was focused on early-stage innovation in predictive and decision analytics aimed at helping consumer products and services clients make better decisions on their prospects and customers. From 1991 to 1999, he served as Fair Isaac’s president and CEO. During that time, Fair Isaac experienced consecutive years of record growth, with annual revenues increasing from $31 million to over $276 million. Prior to that position, he led the Engineering, Research, and Development Division, which was focused on the technical development, production, and marketing of the company's most advanced products, such as TRIAD adaptive control and the FICO score, as well as advances in predictive analytics methodology. In addition to board work, he informally advises a number of for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He co-authored The Deciding Factor: The Power of Analytics to Make Every Decision a Winner (2009).
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